Need help understanding my boat 2 batteries - solar and wind powered electrical system

Felinethecat

Hi there,

I'm new here and checking if someone could enlighten me with an electric system I received with an old sailboat.

There are 2 batteries connected together, one for starting outboards and a 200AMP deep cycle one for the house, a solar panel and a wind turbine (not functioning until I'll give it maintenance and replace blades).

Problem is for now that it seems even on a sunny day the solar panel won't charge the house battery.

I haven't been able to try it while running the 2 outboards.

Is it possible that the solar only charges the starting battery, and the wind turbine (I couldn't test) works for the house battery? Or am I missing some settings to allow charging from solar?

I know that the installation has been done few years ago by a professional (that didn't label much things that I can understand) and seems to be all in good condition from my low expertise level.

The solar panel is at least 10 years old but I have limited information as for everything.. It does look in good condition though (unlike the wind turbine).

On the DC METER, I can read around 14.5-14.4V for both start and house battery when sunny without anything turned on, also a discharge of 1.3-1.7A  in those conditions, and a charge of 0 no matter what I do playing with the different buttons/settings available.

On the second picture, the left Amp indicator is "ticking" hard when the sun hits and I have nothing on, but still no power goes to my house battery.

I believe the second one showing -+30 amps could be wind turbine related?

Also the starting battery shows a green dot saying it should be fully charged. The DC meter only gives me the house battery current capacity. It does stay constant over days of everything turned off.

The last pictured item is in stand by no matter what, so I guessed this one could be going with the outboards running?

If I turn on the water pump/lights or fridge I read a reduced voltage on the DC Meter for both starting and house battery (believe they are connected together, and heard from old owner that start battery should "overflow" when full to charge the house battery...)

I'm really keen on learning how all these systems work and will be very thanksfull to anyone taking the time to read me and give some advice!

Cheers

wellbuilt

It is possible that there is a eco charger on your start battery, what this dose is when your start to get up in voltage on the start battery it switches over automatically to charge your house bank , when it stop charging it separates the 2 nd bank. 

  I all ways used 3 150 ah gell  battery’s and used them as one big bank .
   Pic 1 could be your eco charger ? 

  You could spin your win generator with a drill if you tap up the shank . 

 The solar controller dose not seam to have all the wires in place ? 

 All my morning star units have +- from the solar panel and to the battery unless I just can’t see it in the pic. 

 How large is you solar panel what size out boards do you have , they don’t Usually put out A lot of power 
  You need to figure out what battery is bank one and bank two , I’m thinking your start battery is batt# 2 . 

 And you need more power to flip the relay , maybe try hooking a regular 12v charger up and see if the power feed thru to the second battery .

mcgivor

Trying to understand someone else's design without a wiring diagram is probably one of the most challenging tasks, my inclination would be to remove everything and start from scratch. Understandably that's me, so assuming everything is intact and was working previously the best approach would be to evaluate the components, there seems to be corrosion on many of the terminals, I would work on cleaning them for starters. The house battery appears  to be older than the start battery, try looking for a date of manufacture, there seems to be one near the negative terminal but I can't zoom in enough and a wire is obscuring the digits.

An older battery, can by voltage alone,  appear to be fully charged but actually has little capacity, load testing would establish this. There appears to be a selective relay between the start and house battery, which is common on boats along with RV applications  so as not to drain the starter battery with house loads, personally I believe it's best to keep both systems divorced from on another to eliminate uncertainty. 

The inclusion of wind power only complicates matters, attempting to reverse engineer someone else's Frankenstein  wouldn't be something I would not be willing tackle, especially without being on site,  for this reason I suggest starting from scratch and keeping records including wiring diagrams so you remember what it is you did.

As I have no idea of your personal level of experience, it's difficult to offer suggestions other than those outlined, what may have made sense to the original installer dosent nessersary translate to others.


 

Felinethecat

wellbuilt said:

 The solar controller dose not seam to have all the wires in place ? 

 How large is you solar panel what size out boards do you have , they don’t Usually put out A lot of power 
  You need to figure out what battery is bank one and bank two , I’m thinking your start battery is batt# 2 . 

 And you need more power to flip the relay , maybe try hooking a regular 12v charger up and see if the power feed thru to the second battery .

Solar panel is about 1sq meter, I found out taking down the wind turbine yesterday that it was manufactured in 2004, I believe the solar should be aged around the same. Outboards are 2x 9.9 yamahas, trying them tomorrow see if it changes my input.

Sorry not very clear on picture but the morningstar does have 2 wires on the battery terminal, just none on the load.

Yeah the black champion battery is #2.

I'll try with a charger see what happens, thanks for suggestion!

mcgivor said:

Trying to understand someone else's design without a wiring diagram is probably one of the most challenging tasks, my inclination would be to remove everything and start from scratch. Understandably that's me, so assuming everything is intact and was working previously the best approach would be to evaluate the components, there seems to be corrosion on many of the terminals, I would work on cleaning them for starters. The house battery appears  to be older than the start battery, try looking for a date of manufacture, there seems to be one near the negative terminal but I can't zoom in enough and a wire is obscuring the digits.

An older battery, can by voltage alone,  appear to be fully charged but actually has little capacity, load testing would establish this.

As I have no idea of your personal level of experience, it's difficult to offer suggestions other than those outlined, what may have made sense to the original installer dosent nessersary translate to others.


 

Thanks, I guess that's why I'm in trouble understanding most electrics as I'd assume in the first place that a system designed with X components "should be" set in one way to be efficient... The lack of information I have surely doesn't help.

The one component that shows corrosion is that galvanic isolated on pic #5 (DC-DC converter from my researchs?) everything else is under the bench and seems totally fine. I haven't shown what I believe is the wind turbine controller and a 50Amp circuit breaker that should be related to it.

I'll try find that house battery date of manufacture, and find out how to test it under load. See my new parameters with engines running and wind turbine on.

Redoing the wirring is a bit frightenning right now, but if I come down to it by not solving my issue, should be a great challenge.

mike95490

I find odd humor in the Galvanic Isolator being the piece of gear with corroded terminals.  

And sadly, the wiring rats nest/tangle is about as bad as the contents of my junk wire box.  The whole thing, since it's not working right, and nobody knows what the original intent / scheme was, is to redo the the thing.   Sorry.  That's the right way to fix it.